ARTIST UNKNOWN, SOUTH ALLIGATOR RIVER

Collected in the South Alligator River area in 1970
Private collection

The painting appears to have suffered many areas of minor pigment loss which now looks to be relatively stable. The painting is housed behind perspex in a contemporary wooden frame with a cream cloth mount
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Cf. For two examples of paintings by Old Wurungulngul of mimih figures see Berndt, R. M. (ed), Australian Aboriginal Art, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1964, pls. 36 and 37, and another of by Bob Balirrbalirr Dirdi illustrated in Elkin, A.P. and C.H. and R.M. Berndt, Art in Arnhem Land, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1950, p.82, pl.17

The figure in this painting, with its arms and legs akimbo, may represent a lightning spirit, although the addition of multiple limbs and the 'tassled' attachments to the joints suggest it may be a sorcery figure as in another painting by Balirrbalirr from the 1960s, collected by Ed Ruhe and illustrated in Ruhe, E.L., Bark Paintings from Arnhem Land, Museum of Art, The University of Kansas, 1966, p.17, plate 1c

While this painting was collected on the South Alligator River in 1970, it bears stylistic resemblances to others collected on Goulburn Island by the anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt in 1947